Identifying Outcomes
Peggy Maki
Senior Scholar
Assessing for Learning
American Association for Higher
Education
pmaki@aahe.org
Domains for Assessing Student
Learning
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Basic (entry) skills
College-level skills
General Education
The major of professional or vocational
program
Social, spiritual, ethical development
Other?
List the desired kinds of knowledge, abilities,
habits of mind, ways of knowing, dispositions
that you desire your students to demonstrate:
What is an Outcome Assessment?
Describe what students should know,
understand, and be able to do based on how
and what they have learned.
Emerges from what we value and how we
teach; that is, it emerges from our
educational practices and is developed
through consensus.
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Relies on active verbs, such as create,
compose, calculate, develop, build,
evaluate, translate, etc. that target
what we expect students to be able to
demonstrate.
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Is written for a course, program, or
institution
Alignment of Outcomes
Institutional Outcomes
Program Outcomes
Course Outcomes
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Describes learning achieved in the following
domains:
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–
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Cognitive
Behavioral
Affective
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Is aligned with curriculum and co-curriculum
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Ample, varied, and multiple ways to learn that
desired outcome
Is based on intentionality (established
through dialog)
Distinguishing between Objectives and
Outcomes
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Objectives state overarching expectations
such as—
Students will develop oral communication
skills.
OR
Students will understand different
economic principles.
Example from ABET
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Design and conduct experiment; analyze and
interpret data
Compare:
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Students will write
effectively
to
Students will
summarize recent
articles on
economics and
identify underlying
economic
assumptions.
Example from ACRL
Literate student evaluates information and its
sources critically and incorporates selected
information into his or her knowledge and
values system.
ONE OUTCOME: Student examines and
compares information from various sources
in or to evaluate reliability, validity, accuracy,
timeliness, and point of view or bias.
Ways to Articulate Outcomes
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Adapt from professional organizations
Derive from mission of
institution/program/service
Derive from students’ work
Derive from interview transcripts
Derive from exercises focused on listing one
or two outcomes “you attend to” and then
map collective efforts.
Characteristics of a good outcomes
statement:
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Focuses on what students can do
Focuses on learning from an instructional
activity, content, curricular design/cocurricular design
Focuses on central abilities in the discipline
based on recognized/agreed upon standards
Is clear enough to be measurable
Focuses on enduring abilities that can be
assessed now
Write one outcome statement that captures
what students should achieve:
How well does your outcome statement
meet characteristics of a good statement?
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Focuses on what students can do?
Focuses on learning from an instructional activity,
content, curricular design/co-curricular design?
Focuses on central abilities in the discipline
based on recognized/agreed upon standards?
Is clear enough to be measurable?
Focuses on enduring abilities that can be
assessed now?